The present invention is directed to a circuit board adaptor for prototyping electrical circuits with surface mounted components and particularly such an SMC adaptor facilitating the use of conventional leaded component prototyping hardware.
Surface mounted electronic components are used in fabricating electronic circuits for providing an improved effective method of producing complex circuits employing solid state electronic components and the like.
During product development using electronic components, various circuit arrangements and connections are built and tested to arrive at a final product design. Surface mounted components are small components having interconnecting leads which are difficult to connect and reconnect into a circuit during the design an prototyping of particular circuit.
In contrast, for conventional leaded components prototype circuit fabrication techniques are highly developed and hardware is available to facilitate prototype circuit fabrication. For example, leaded components can be mounted and interconnected on a variety of component adapters. Sockets are available to mate with the components adapters and vector boards or prototype circuits boards featuring multiple solder pads predrilled to accept the sockets along with buses for power supply connections.
Surface mounted components and particularly with the interconnecting corresponding leads make it extremely difficult, time consuming and expensive during prototyping of like product development to provide for the necessary wiring and rewiring.
Various prior art devices have been provided for minimizing the difficulties associated with the development of circuits including involving surface mounted components. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,489,365 which issued Dec. 18, 1984 discloses a multiple element mounting pad particularly adapted for receiving various universal leadless chip carriers. The pad disclosed is applicable to a wide range of the chip carrier sizes and therefore permits some convenience during prototyping, burn-in components and the like. Another adaptor for a leadless chip carrier is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,564,251 which issued Jan. 14, 1986, wherein an adaptor includes a base element which fits into a connecting socket. The base element has multiple pads that contact the terminals of the socket. An interface element extends upwardly from the base element to receive a leadless chip carrier and provides for connection of laboratory test equipment and the like. These and other patents disclose units which are specially adapted to a leadless chip carrier. However, the prior art does not provide solutions for the more conventional surface mounted components which require lead wire connections.
There remains a need for an adaptor for surface mounted components which will permit the interconnection of the surface mounted components into various circuit configurations for prototyping and the like, and an adaptor which preferably operates and uses existing prototype hardware and technologies, including conventional through-hole printed circuit board devices.